The Black Banshee - Part One
Serial Fiction
Welcome to the Steampunk adventures of Gold Detection. Over the next nine weeks, we will travel to the very edge of madness and death with our esteemed heroes! Check back every Monday or Subscribe to receive my writing in your Inbox.
Part One - Wherein we meet our heroes and listen to a strange and eerie invitation.
Kate Gold stood before her dressing closet. Choosing a dress from among the hundreds that spun past her at a steady rate of speed was never an easy task but always an enjoyable one. She loved to see the dresses in every hue of the rainbow fly by, and she enjoyed pressing and releasing the button just enough that the pressurized air sounded like the slightest melody.
Kate smiled as the melody of the closet was overtaken by the loud chime of the front doorbell, and she hurried to the window of her upstairs dressing room just in time to see the steam-driven bike of a street messenger pulling away.
She frowned a bit as she thought about the invitation to some stuffy social event that was, at that very moment, being sat on a silver platter and carried by the house butler, Hieronymus, up the stairs to where she now stood.
“Though it could be a summons from the chief of police,” she said to herself.
“Of course not, Katie,” she scolded back. “The good inspector always comes by when he needs the help of Kate and Maximus Gold, the newest sleuthing duo in St. Louis.”
Kate paused for a moment under the newly framed edition of the St. Louis Dispatch. The date of the paper was two weeks before. The headline read, “Killer Automaton Captured by Socialite Snoops!”
The last part was a bit of bad taste, but Kate was proud of the press nonetheless. It was their first legitimate case, and though she almost fell prey to the killer herself, they solved it. She knew in her heart that soon, clients and police alike would be knocking on their door and asking for the assistance of Gold’s Detection.
Like an omen, a knock sounded at her door. Yet, Kate knew who it must be and brought herself back to reality. She looked down at her slight ghostly white body. She was wearing nothing but a bustle and the small revolver that her husband had given to her after the automaton fiasco. She shuttered for a moment as she thought back to that time.
“Nothing to think about now,” she reminded herself. “It won’t be the last time I place myself into a bit of dirty business.”
She was a woman who never minded getting her hands dirty and never cared about the constricting ideals of polite society. The daughter of the great Jim and Candace Weatherby, the first couple to pilot a blimp over the great plains and western mountains to the Pacific Ocean and back again. She grew up among so-called savages, both American and European. Her training with the weapon strapped to her leg moved quickly, and she mused that shooting a gun was like riding a horse; once you had it, you could never forget.
She was the daughter of the West, yet she also knew the value of being presentable. A value that was honed by her love and husband, the gentleman Maximus Gold, son of a steamship baron and a steel baroness.
This value reminded her to slip a robe over her bustle and gun before calling for the butler to enter. Hieronymus had been with the Gold family since well before Maximus was born, and Kate’s husband often mused about the butler giving him candy and winks when he was a child. Seeing the man now, Kate would never believe that the solemn look locked onto his face could ever be erased.
Hieronymus held the silver platter in front of him, and Kate saw the envelope folded neatly on it.
“Sorry to disturb you, Madam. A young ruffian, riding one of those infernal machines, just dropped this off at the door.”
Kate smiled at Hieronymus’ lack of fervor for the newest technology and plucked the note from the tray. As she did, the first thing she noticed was its weight. It was no simple invitation but a phonogram. Kate knew right away that this was from someone in the high echelon of St. Louis society. The parchment was folded and tied with a long black ribbon. From the ribbon hung a charm. It looked made of iron and was in the shape of a tiny locomotive. Seeing the emblem, Kate had one guess of who the phonogram was from. “Rich indeed,” she thought.
“Thank you, Hieronymus,” Kate muttered, giving the man a slight nod of the head. “Please inform Master Gold that we will take breakfast in the atrium shortly.”
“Yes, Madam,” the old butler returned. “But, I believe he might be too engaged in his experiments to… shall we say… step away at this time.”
Kate smiled again at the butler’s turn of phrase. Master Gold could not be said to “step away” because he was, in fact, sitting. Kate’s husband had, of late, set himself to meditation in the attempt to project his presence out into a steam-driven creature, the same automaton that had killed at least six streetwalkers on the wharves of the Mississippi River. The same monster that the couple had almost died defeating.
“You see, Darling,” He had animatedly said to her at dinner the week before. “If one could only project themselves out into an automaton or even into a contraption fastened to a blimp, a police force could patrol the city without ever leaving the comfort of their own homes.”
“Yes,” Kate remembered replying. “They could also spy on their neighbors, rob, and kill without actually being at the scene of the crime.”
“Pshaw!” Maximus replied. “Your Western ways have hardened you against humanity.” He grabbed her hand. “We are inherently good beings, my dear. This technology would allow us to be vigilant but not put men at risk.”
He paused to sip his wine. “Besides, who is to say that the masses need to know or understand the technology of the elite? We must be good shepherds.”
This was another thing that they disagreed on. Kate knew there were only a few precious little sheep in the world, and most of them would rather face the wolves than feel their freedom was forfeit.
“Take him his breakfast below, Hieronymus,” Kate told the butler. No one could get between her husband and a goal. She would revisit her counsel as to what should be done with the technology after it was actually proven to work.
The butler took his leave, and Kate turned her attention back to the small piece of parchment covered material in her hand. It was a stylized version of the ones that they had in their collection.
Edison’s phonograph was one of Kate’s favorite inventions of the last century. She remembered Maximus taking her to see the man himself present the machine when he was traveling the country. They had ordered their very own that night, and it had been placed in her sitting room.
As she walked toward the machine, she removed the ribbon and withdrew the wax-covered paper of the phonogram. She then lifted the phonograph's needle and placed the disc on the machine.
The scratching from the wax record came softly through the phonograph, followed by a hint of flowing music. Kate waited a full minute before the familiar voice of Major Richard Blackburn slid out of the funnel as a snake from its hole. “Dearest friends, I would like to invite you to join me and many others of our society and station on the first voyage of the Black Banshee, my newest and fastest locomotive. We will travel the outskirts of the city and cross both rivers in a matter of an hour, breaking the record of two hours and twenty-eight minutes by half. Your presence is requested this Saturday at dusk. Dinner will be provided before the journey, and celebratory drinks will be had after. I am assured that you will join Blackburn Rails on this historic occasion. I leave you now to the charming sounds of my ward, Lafayetta playing a lost concerto of the great maestro Chopin.”
Once the voice ended, the slow notes of a piano drifted out of the phonograph. The song was haunting, moving through soft notes and raising in volume as it crashed into others. It sounded like the waves of the river Styx washing up near the gates of Hell itself.
Thanks for reading and taking this adventure with me! Move on to Part Two!
Let me know what you think below.
The Black Banshee was first published in a slightly different form in the anthology - Machina Mortis: Steampunk'd Tales of Terror. Pick up the book for some other great stories.